Chapter 279: Welcome Back

Awooooo!

Just as Horell was finished shouting the name of the Supreme Alliance skill, both of his hands were soon covered in crimson red energy, which was accompanied by the loud howling of a wolf. Not long after, the energy took on a deeper shade of crimson red as light gray wisps soon circled Horell's fists, giving off the intent that once the energy on his hands touched something, that item would inevitably crumble into pieces.

He then went ahead and started to punch out towards Argentum's direction, with each punch forming a part of what seemed to be a larger silhouette. While looking at the silhouette being formed as it gradually headed towards his way, Argentum could not help but feel like the silhouette gradually became familiar to him. Eventually, he found out that his hunch was correct as the silhouette had transformed into a translucent wolf that exhibited the same properties on Horell's hands a while ago.

Looking at this translucent wolf for a bit, a certain being that Aurus remembered very well surfaced in his mind, prompting to look at the wolf that was heading towards him with a slightly surprised aura as he muttered in disbelief, "Chonk? How did he turn into this skill?"

Recalling what he knew about Chonk through Aurus's memories, he was a wolf that yearned to destroy the three alliances in Tempest Cliff in order to become its sole ruler. Unfortunately for him, that plan was foiled by Aurus, which was further brought to oblivion thanks to Horell becoming a double agent of the current Verdant Blossom Branch Alliance.

"I can remember that he died thanks to Aurus and Bell," Argentum muttered, only to stop for a bit as he noticed that the translucent wolf was now a meter away from him. Without hesitation, he went ahead and ran at his full speed, finding out that the wolf was chasing him even if he ran away from it. With that observation, he made sure to maintain a decent amount of distance from the wolf before continuing with his pondering. After about ten seconds or so of pondering over what had happened to Chonk, the memory Aurus had regarding the question had finally surfaced in his mind, allowing Argentum to finally find out how Chonk had transformed into that.

In that memory, Aurus was brought to the alliance hall by Horell before going ahead and asking Herellia as to what the alliance had in store for Chonk's corpse. In response to that question, Herellia looked at Aurus and said, "The plan is very simple. Using my Sanguine Arts, Harriott's special magic skills, and Cermalia's great mastery over illusions, we're planning to 'revive' Chonk and transform him into the greatest trump card of the alliance."

She then added not long after, "A controllable being capable of dishing out Animate level attacks." Of course, to Aurus, he thought that using the corpse of their dead enemy as a trump card felt wrong. Then again, using corpses, in general, was wrong. But then, he thought that if it was for the betterment of the alliance, then doing something like this could be ignored.

"To think that instead of me using the trump card, it is instead used against me. How ironic," Argentum muttered after he was finished recalling the memory, letting out a mocking chuckle as he felt that he had already run for long enough. In preparation for what he was about to do, he went ahead and focused his sense of vision onto Horell, who was currently looking at him with a vengeful aura radiating from him. Noticing this aura, Argentum could not help but lightly chuckle as he said to himself, "That aura is definitely going to transform in an instant once he finds out what I'm going to do."

Whoosh!

Without hesitation, Argentum went ahead and changed his direction of running to head towards Horell, which shocked the latter as he thought that the wolf was about to finally hit the being. But then, seeing that this being was getting closer to him, the vengeful aura he was radiating just a while ago had instantly transformed into fear, knowing very well of the implications that came with his attack.

"Stay away from me!" Horell shouted in a panicked tone, remembering the multiple rounds of testing the Supreme Alliance skill had undergone to reach its current state. At first, the skill could only emulate a small portion of Chonk's power at his peak, making Herellia, the elders, as well as Horell feel that the power behind it was lacking. They then continued to refine it for several days as all of them improved their strength in the meantime, eventually reaching the current level of power the skill had, which was at the peak of Rank 0 Animate.

In response to Horell's pleas, Argentum radiated a malicious yet playful aura as he lightly giggled. Naturally, he ignored his pleas, allowing the translucent wolf that was chasing him to come closer to Horell, increasing the amount of fear Horell felt. At this moment, the fear Horell radiated was at the level of becoming palpable, his thoughts filled with the hope that the wolf doesn't hit him at the last second.

Fortunately for him, Argentum did not have any intent to let the wolf hit Horell, stopping just a few meters in front of him before turning around and shouting, "[Higher Ignis Magic: Ignis Burst]!"

Fwoosh!

In an instant, the aura radiating from Argentum had reached a new high, leaving the shocked Horell at a loss for words. While being at a loss for words, he could not help but remember the words he spewed out to make Argentum hit him. Only now did he realize that Argentum was not weak in terms of combat power, but rather…

He was a monster when it came to it!

"[Higher Algor Magic: Water Bolt]." Since Argentum had stopped running away from the wolf, that meant that the wolf gradually got closer to him. Unfortunately for the wolf, it would not even be able to fulfill its purpose as Argentum hastily conjured a bolt of water before throwing it at the wolf, dispersing the power forming the wolf in one hit.

Swoosh! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Although the power forming the wolf had been dispersed, only a small amount of power forming the bolt of water was exhausted, allowing it to continue in its trajectory before going ahead and easily boring a hole through multiple trees. With the help of his enhanced vision, Argentum soon found out that he had bored a hole through exactly 16 trees, making him scratch his head.

As he continued to scratch his head, he then turned around to look at Horell, who was currently looking at him with an aura of fear. Just as he thought that Horell was about to thank him for dispersing the wolf before being hit by it, Argentum instead got the exact opposite as Horell shot a beam at him without hesitation while shouting, "Get away from me!"

Whoosh!

Of course, with the help of his movement speed boosting buffs, he was able to easily dodge a beam, even one that was fired close at him. Nevertheless, after seeing Horell's next move, he could not help but let out a light sigh as he thought to himself, 'Horell has lost it.'

Bang! Bang! Bang!

After that beam was a few more attacks fired out in desperation, ranging from beams to balls, to even weapons made out of mana. Naturally, since they were attacks desperately fired, that meant that their accuracy was at a level where it would be easy to dodge. In fact, during these attacks, the movement speed boosting buffs Argentum relied upon to dodge had run out of time. But due to the low accuracy of the attacks, he was able to activate all of them within a matter of seconds while making sure to dodge the attacks.

Eventually, the power behind Horell's attacks gradually became weaker as the amount of energy coursing throughout his body became less. At this moment, the energy making up Horell's body was as pale of a cyan as it could be, with his body even flickering in and out of existence at times. Noticing this, Argentum finally let out a sigh of relief as he muttered to himself, "His energy is finally exhausted."

Without hesitation, Argentum headed towards Horell, who unhesitatingly went ahead and tried to fire an attack at the being that was coming closer to him, but all of his attempts to conjure one ended up in a flickering failure. Seeing as he had finally reached his limit, Horell opted to radiate an aura that said 'I'll never give up' instead, making Argentum inwardly sigh as he thought to himself, 'I just want to enter the alliance…why is it so hard?'

"You've exhausted all of your energy," Argentum looked at the flickering Horell before saying in a solemn tone. He then asked him, "Will you admit defeat and let me enter the alliance?"

"Never!" Contrary to the deal Horell made before the fight started, Horell declined Argentum's wishes of entering the inheritance as the thoughts in his mind had now become jumbled from intense anger. "You're going to destroy the alliance from the inside anyway!"

"Huh…?" Hearing Horell's words, Argentum could not help but let out a confused aura as his tone had changed to that of slight fury. Feeling like he was being wronged, he soon replied, "The thought of doing that didn't even cross my mind! I've told you from the start that I was just here to meet up with Aurus!"

Just as Horell was about to respond to Argentum's words, telling him that his statement was a complete and utter falsification, he could not help but sense an intense aura of killing intent coming from him, which was accompanied by the voice of a female as it said, "Hoh? Meet up with Aurus, huh?"

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"Hm?" As a familiar voice to Argentum resounded from the main hall, he could not help but focus his sense of vision on the one who spoke, being greeted with the sight of a large branch with red veins all over it while it radiated a dense yet somewhat beautiful crimson red aura. Naturally, this large branch was none other than Herellia, the leader of the Verdant Blossom Branch Alliance.

Thanks to Horell stalling for time, Herellia was able to amass enough energy to utilize the skill she had used in the war against Chonk. Unfortunately for her, even though she came to the entrance of the alliance as fast as possible, the fight was already over, with Horell being defeated. But just as she thought that the being in front of Horell was about to intrude into the alliance, she then heard the being mention the name of someone quite close to her.

"What is your relationship with Aurus?" she asked not long after as a follow-up to her previous words. In response, Argentum pondered as to whether he should say the same words he told Horell a while ago before deciding to switch it up a bit. With that in mind, he replied, "From a certain perspective, you can say that Aurus and I are one and the same."

"Is that true?" Herellia looked at the worn-out Horell and asked, to which the latter took in a few deep breaths to compose himself before replying, "He told me a while ago that he and Aurus were blood brothers, but I decided to doubt the idea and fight off against him."

"To be honest, that was incredibly stupid," Argentum could not help but say in response to Horell's words before adding, "That decision of yours is very unlike you, Horell."

"Wait…" Hearing his name being mentioned by someone he did not know, Horell could not help but let out an aura of disbelief, with Herellia doing the same as the killing intent surrounding her had immediately dissipated. It took a few seconds for them to snap back to reality, yet they were still in utter disbelief.

In response to Argentum's words, Horell cautiously asked him, "How do you…know my name?"

"As I've said, you can consider me and Aurus to be one and the same," Argentum replied to his question before looking at Herellia and saying, "Of course, I recognize you as well, Herellia. To someone like me, the leader of the Verdant Blossom Branch Alliance is quite the prominent figure."

"How…" And just like Horell, Herellia was left at a loss for words after hearing her name being mentioned by the being in front of him. As for Argentum, he could not help but inwardly be happy as he found that his on-the-spot thought of mentioning their names had actually helped out.

Taking in a few deep breaths to ease her shock, Herellia eventually calmed down before looking at Argentum and asked, "What's your name? And what do you mean by you and Aurus being one and the same?"

"My name is Argentum, and well…" At first, Argentum replied by using his voice, but just as he was about to answer the second question Herellia asked, he opted to send a strand of energy to her instead before saying, "What I mean by that is…"

"I'm Aurus's clone. The trump card that he was hiding in the war."

"Ah?" Rather than utilizing energy to respond, Herellia could not help but utter a sound of shock after listening to Argentum's words, making Horell look at her peculiarly for a bit. Fortunately, she hastily composed herself before sending back a strand of her own to Argentum, asking, "How could I believe you?"

Of course, hearing that the being in front of her was a clone of Aurus brought her a lot of joy as Aurus was still unconscious. Nevertheless, she still had to make sure that this being in front of him was speaking the truth, lest she wanted to put the alliance in grave danger. Naturally, Argentum had the same idea in mind, deciding that a certain skill Herellia had would be the best way to prove his innocence.

Sending a strand of energy back, he replied, "Use your [Eyes of Undeceiving Truth] on me, then. Wouldn't that be enough to show you that my words aren't lies?"

Hearing the name of one of her skills being mentioned by Argentum, Herellia could not help but become biased at the thought of Argentum actually being a clone of Aurus, although she went ahead and suppressed this urge to accept Argentum into the alliance without verification as she radiated an aura of affirmation before using [Eyes of Undeceiving Truth] on him.

It did not take long for Herellia to find out the truth, prompting her to radiate an aura of immense elation…which she hastily suppressed as it did not fit her image as the Supreme Leader of the alliance. Nevertheless, she was still inwardly happy that Argentum was actually an ally of the alliance, wanting to ask him multiple questions soon after.

But just as she was about to do so, Argentum went ahead and sent a message to her through a strand of energy, as if he had read her mind.

"I know you're eager to ask me a lot of questions, but let's save that for later. How about you let me enter the alliance first?" Argentum said through the strand, to which Herellia had no qualms with as she said without utilizing an energy strand, "Alright."

She then looked at Horell for a bit before saying, "Horell, make sure to apologize to Argentum later. I'll explain the details to you once I bring him to where he wants to go."

Although Horell was quite curious as to what the two were talking about through strands of energy, Horell had finally returned his previous personality as he solemnly nodded, "Alright, then."

"As for you, Argentum," Herellia said not long after before focusing her sense of vision at Argentum. "Follow me. I'll lead you to where Aurus is."

"Understood," Argentum said in response before following Herellia as he noticed that she was already heading towards the small ecosystem of the alliance.

While making their way to the ecosystem, Herellia could not help but feel incredibly happy since to her, it felt like the alliance was back to normal. With that in mind, she could not help but mutter to herself in a soft yet happy tone…

"Welcome back…"

"Aurus."

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